Gender

Male

Location

Hillsboro, OR

How did you find this community?

chance

What Elder Scrolls games have you played?

3,4,5

What Fallout games have you played?

nv, 4

Do you get to the Cloud District often?

“A Word on Ambition, Merit, and the Cloud District” Ladies and gentlemen, stewards of Whiterun, wayfarers and warriors alike, I beg but a moment of your time—not to boast, nor to belittle, but to speak plainly of truth as I have lived it, and as others, perhaps, have only feigned. You see, in recent days, much has been murmured in the mead halls and along the market lanes about who may or may not ascend to the Cloud District, that lofty perch above the common din, where decisions of great import are made and from which the winds carry whispers of legacy. There are those who speak of it as though it were a divine right or a gilded privilege bestowed upon the back-patting, boot-licking, and belly-crawling of this world. One such man—and I use the term loosely—goes by the name Nazeem. Now, Nazeem is no stranger to you. His voice carries like a skeever’s shriek and his questions—“Do you get to the Cloud District very often?”—are less inquiries than the bleats of a man desperately trying to convince himself of his own relevance. He fancies himself a man of status, yet he is a monument not to excellence, but to opportunism. His path upward—if one can call it a path—has been carved not with the sword of intellect, nor the staff of strategy, but with the wet tongue of sycophancy, pressed eagerly against the boots of men with power. His ascent is not an achievement, but an affliction upon meritocracy. By contrast, my own rise—slow, perhaps, and at times burdened by the weight of humility—has been wrought with effort, sharpened with wisdom, and burnished with charisma not born of vanity, but of vision. I did not arrive in the halls of the Cloud District with my nose in a jarl’s ledger and my spine bent like a willowy servant. No. I walked there upright, bearing scars of trial, arms strengthened by labor, and a mind unclouded by delusion. Where Nazeem flatters to climb, I earn. Let me be clear: I do not begrudge the ambitious. The world must turn on the axis of aspiration. But there is a distinction—an essential one—between the man who climbs a mountain, and the man who is carried up it on a litter of lies and flattery. One commands respect; the other merely demands attention. I do not need to speak of my station, for it is evident in deed. I do not need to ask others if they “get to the Cloud District,” for the view from my window is answer enough. I do not measure my worth by proximity to power, but by the strength of character that grants me power of my own. So let Nazeem prattle on, let him strut through the market with the airs of a man who thinks proximity is prestige. Let him chase shadows on marble floors while I, quietly and without arrogance, shape the future from above—not through accident, not through servility, but through the simple, unshakable force of merit. And when he next asks, as he inevitably shall—“Do you get to the Cloud District very often?”—I shall smile, as one smiles upon a child who does not yet understand the weight of the question he asks. For I do not visit the Cloud District, dear friends. I reside there. Thank you.